


Salvation

by Tatjana_Fantasy



Category: The Dark Pictures: Little Hope (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Anthony needs a hug, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27899923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tatjana_Fantasy/pseuds/Tatjana_Fantasy
Summary: They're dead.He saw them die, he attended their funeral, but Anthony still can't believe it. His family is dead. None of them will ever come back.And it's all his fault.[Vignettes about Anthony's life after the incident.]
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	Salvation

**Author's Note:**

> I genuinely loved the ending of the game and wanted to show this love with a little fanfiction. I changed the events of the comic a bit, but other than that, it should all be Canon Compliant :)

**I.**  
They're dead.

He saw them die, he attended their funeral, but Anthony still can't believe it. His family is dead. None of them will ever come back.

And it's all his fault.

~

 **II.**  
He sees their faces everywhere.

Wherever he goes, wherever he looks, they are there. People in the crowd. People on pictures. Even people on memorials.

Anthony can't escape them. He wants to cry. He wants to scream.

Instead, he hides his feelings behind a mask. It works.

Everyone blames him for the house fire.

If he owes his family anything, it's this punishment. He doesn't deserve to live.

~

 **III.**  
He tries to kill himself a few days later.

Tanya stops him.

Suddenly, she's there, by his side, like she never left. His grip loosens and the gun falls to the ground. He stares at her, disbelievingly. She isn't real, he knows she isn't real, but –

But –

He wants it so badly to be true.

He lets her stay.

~

 **IV.**  
Anthony reads the headline. He didn't listen to the policeman who freed him because Anne and James argued about something, but now he knows what he said.

_FIRE CAUSED BY CHILD'S TOY_

And he remembers. Shock rushes through him, shock and disbelief. It can't be. Megan – poor, sweet Megan – would never do such a thing.

Not unless she was possessed by the Devil, at least.

~

 **V.**  
Maybe she _was_ possessed by the Devil.

He remembers how she talked to her imaginary friend – _someone who actually cares about me_ , her voice echoes – and how she always kept her distance with everyone else.

Except him.

Everyone died in the fire, except him.

Maybe Megan intended this. He was the only one she liked, so she begged her imaginary friend, her _demon_ , to spare him.

Anthony hates her for that.

~

 **VI.**  
Everyone visits him on his nineteenth birthday. It's the first time everyone gathers at the same time and at the same place.

It doesn't go well.

Anne shouts at James about family and alcohol and responsibility. Dennis shouts at Tanya about Vince, whom Anthony didn't see since the funeral.

And Megan isn't there.

 _She feels guilty_ , Anthony thinks. But at the same time, he can't help but think that his family would've survived if they were better people.

Anne is derisive. Tanya is deceitful. Dennis is arrogant. And James is dismissive.

Maybe they died because they were bad people.

That needs to change.

~

 **VII.**  
Reverend Carson gets arrested.

Anthony reads the headline, but he isn't interested enough to study the whole article. Something about occult practices and disturbing behavior and God knows what. It doesn't matter, he convinces himself. It has nothing to do with him.

He lies to himself, of course. Deep in his mind, he knows that Carson isn't the innocent priest he claimed to be, but he is too focused on Megan to think about anything else.

Megan keeps running away from him. It's almost like she's a ghost.

~

 **VIII.**  
Anthony develops different theories throughout the years, searching for the reason his family was killed. He doesn't believe it was just an accident. There has to be a deeper meaning behind all of this.

The first thing he does is developing different names and identities for his family. A not insignificant part of him fears that they died because they were tied to him. So he removes those ties, as much as it hurts.

His interest in Salem witch trials makes him develop his family into accused members of Little Hope.

He imagines that James and Anne – he calls these versions of them Joseph and Amy now – are happily married and that Tanya, Dennis and Megan (or Tabitha, David and Mary) are a separate sibling couple. He is just another puritan named Abraham who is supposed to take care of Mary in case her family can't or don't want to do that anymore.

Then he creates new identities in the present. He starts calling himself Andrew. He always liked that name. Then, he makes new versions of the others.

James becomes John, a college professor who recently became sober. Anthony always wanted him to sober up, so he fulfills this wish by making him a better person than he really was.

The next wish fulfillment comes in the form of Taylor and Daniel, John's students and hopelessly in love – in more than one way. Dennis expressed interest in Tanya back in the day and Anthony thinks they would make a great couple.

Creating Angela takes him the longest. It takes a while until he decides she's going to be a senior student, a hard marriage and a hard divorce in her portfolio. Anne probably would've divorced James, after all, if she hadn't – hadn't left.

Anthony creates a few more versions, but those two are the ones that permanently stay with him.

Now, it's time to create a way to save them all.

~

 **IX.**  
Anthony fails. Then he fails again. And again. And again.

He doesn't know what he's doing wrong. He made his family members – his former family members – into better people. He concluded that Megan killed them because she was possessed by a demon. He did everything he could.

They still die.

Maybe Megan isn't the problem.

Maybe Megan isn't the _only_ problem. Maybe … just maybe …

They each have their own demons to overcome.

~

 **X.**  
It almost breaks him, but he forces himself to remember.

How they died. _Why_ they died.

Megan was burned in the fire. James was crushed by falling debris. Anne suffocated in the bathroom. Dennis was pierced by a fence.

And Tanya …

Anthony stops. He doesn't remember. _He doesn't remember how she died._

Was she also burned, like Megan? Or was she hanged by her own scarf? Anthony remembers both scenes vividly. Which was the true one? How did his sister die? No matter how hard he tries, he doesn't remember.

Eventually, he decides that both deaths happened and continues on.

In order to save them, his family members need to face their own demons. So Anthony has to create them.

~

 **XI.**  
Things don't go as planned. They never do.

Before Anthony can try out his strategy, before he can save his family, his co-workers decide that he needs therapy. Anthony refuses at first, but when they threaten to take his job away, he begrudgingly agrees. He doesn't _need_ therapy. He's perfectly fine. Why does no one see that? He has his family and he's going to save them, he needs nothing more.

His therapist, Hannah Stone, disagrees. She's a calm woman and it almost feels good talking to her, but she doesn't understand. When he confesses that he still talks to his family, she looks at him funny and he immediately knows he's made a mistake.

He never, ever said it out loud. Now that he did, he wishes he would've just stayed quiet. Quickly, he changes the topic and talks about his guilt instead.

It's slightly better than talking about his current family, but only slightly. Since he can't reveal Megan's role, he talks about the days after the fire, before he read the newspaper that changed everything.

It's horrible.

He doesn't just talk. He _feels_. He feels so incredibly guilty as if the fire _was_ actually his fault. He knows it wasn't – he would've killed himself a long time ago if it was –, but that doesn't help much.

He talks more about the fire than he did in the past ten, twenty, thirty years. Miss Stone listens. Then she says: “Maybe we should go back.”

He stiffens. “What do you mean?”

“We should go back to where it all started. To Little Hope.”

~

 **XII.**  
They go to Little Hope.

Anthony breaks and they leave.

~

 **XIII.**  
He continues his job as a bus driver. It feels good to drive people home.

His passengers mostly consist of his family. And he is their ferryman.

Until he approaches a roadblock. Until a sheriff informs him: “We're diverting all traffic through Little Hope.”

Anthony sees Megan again and crashes the bus.

~

 **XIV.**  
John and Taylor help him get up.

They reunite with Angela and Daniel.

Something's wrong. Something's very, very wrong.

Andrew just doesn't know what.

~

 **XV.**  
He saves Mary. He saves his family.

Yet, he doesn't feel anything.

Until Vince arrives.

~

 **XVI.**  
“You're not alone here.”

“Take it easy on yourself.”

“We've all been through hell.”

“You know that right?”

“We're finally getting out of this hellhole.”

“You can't blame yourself for any of this.”

“It was a tragic accident.”

Andrew becomes Anthony again. He finally, finally remembers. A sad smile forms on his lips.

“I just wish we all could've made it.”


End file.
